12.24.12 Hajime's Toy Puppet: Ibuki is Born
Who: Hajime Witnesses: -Setsuko -Kirei -Kihaku -Sakai -Akio Where: Yonshigakure Main Gate RP: HatakeHajime: Early Morning in Yonshigakure. Hajime was just waking up from a long nap. He had been sleeping most of the day so that he could save his energy for the break of night time. Tonight, Hajime was going to finish his puppet—at least the puppet part; as he didn’t think he had time to sew the outfit on it tonight. With that thought cleared and checked through, Hajime got up from his bed, and performed his daily rituals—but with a twist! This time is was at night. Hajime walked over to his closet and retrieved his training garb from the shelves inside. He then walked into his bathroom and locked the door shut. After locking the door, Hajime opened the shower up, and turned on the water. After the water was hot enough, Hajime stripped down and jumped into the shower. As the young man took his shower, several thoughts flew through his mind. “I need to get stronger.” Hajime said to himself. “Could I be a great ninja?” Hajime’s thoughts raced and bordered between self-insurance and self-doubt. About fifteen minutes would pass. Hajime got out of the shower, and dried himself off with his towel. He then shook his hair so it was nice and messy after which he adorned himself in his training clothes. Hajime left the bathroom, and stared at the table—upon which lay his supplies for the night. Hajime strapped his new puppet starter kit to his back and put his goggles on. He put on his shoes, and grabbed hold of his Puppet Manual. With haste, Hajime ran out of the front door—shutting it and locking it behind him—and jumped off of the balcony. “Whooohoo!” Hajime shouted as he fell with style. “I might as well get some training in on my way to my spot.” Hajime landed on the low branch of a nearby tree. Hajime felt that it’d be the perfect opportunity to work on his stamina. With that, Hajime jumped off of the branch, and began to run as soon as he landed. Hajime had been training his stamina a lot lately, so he wasn’t getting tired as much anymore. He liked going for jogs and running from place to place. When he could, Hajime would enjoy jumping too. Hajime continued running from his apartment complex on the West Side through the streets of the village. After about an hour of jogging, Hajime found himself in the middle of the main strip of Yonshigakure—where he liked to hang out. He could not hand out today. Hajime had to finish his puppet today. Hajime ran to the gate as fast as he could. It wasn’t long before he would reach his destination. When he arrived at the gate area, he took a seat upon one of the benches in the courtyard by the gate, and placed his new puppet kit next to him on the bench. The puppet kit was in the form of a back pack, and held various supplies as well as the materials given to him by Yume-Sensei. After placing it on the table, Hajime opened the kit and retrieved his supplies. First, he would take out his carving tools. These were the fundamental tools that would allow him to build out his puppet. Hajime then opened his Puppet text book to the page with the puppet types—he had stored his design paper inside of the section—and began studying his design thoroughly. Hajime began to carve. He stroked the knife against the block of wood gently, but not too gently. Referring to his notes and design sheet for a constant reference, Hajime was able to make the precise cuts he needed. As Hajime was alone at the table, he could probably get more done. He thought to himself that he should probably not put this off, as it was his first real step to getting into puppetry. Hajime consistently measured the thickness and length of each part before cutting them. About an hour and a half passed before he was able to cut out the body and limbs. The last piece of this first set was the most complicated piece to cut—the head. Carving out the head required a lot of manual dexterity, a steady hand, and a lot of patience. With that patience and steady hand, Hajime slowly began to carve the head of the toy puppet. Hajime made sure not to make any mistakes with this. If he did, he would have to redo the entire thing again. Hajime continued to refer to his design sheet and his text book for tips on how to make carving the head easier. Hajime read a tip about angular cuts being a good way to carve the head. He followed the book’s advice, and sure enough, it was working. However, Hajime still had to keep as careful as possible. About twenty minutes passed before Hajime cut out the base of the head. Now it was time to move onto an even more detailed task—the facial features. This was even more important than carving the head. A Puppet’s face was what gave it its personality. It gave the puppet its character. Holding the head tightly and with a strong base in his hand, Hajime took up another carving tool and began to carve the four holes where its eyes would go. “Alright!” Hajime shouted as he accomplished this task. He was happy. The eyes were easier than he thought. HatakeHajime: After working on his puppet for a couple of hours, Hajime took out the joints from his bag—which would hold his pieces together. One by one, Hajime would fasten the joints to each portion of the puppet to which they belonged. Before too long—as joints did not take incredibly long to fasten—Hajime had his joints, and now a fully functional frame for the puppet. Hajime laid the frame down beside him and took a plank of wood and a marking tool from his back pack. Slowly, Hajime measured the sizes for his new toy puppet’s accessories. First, Hajime was going to draw up the large overlays for the arms. Hajime measured and drew the design on a part of the plank. After which, Hajime cut out the individual pieces with his carving tool, and fastened the pieces together using pins and glue—like any toy puppet should have. He then drew up the design for several small wheels that he would attach to his puppet’s left arm. Before cutting these small wheels out, however, Hajime would first have to carve into the left arm. Hajime began to measure the size of the crevice that he would carve into his puppet’s arm. As he measured, Hajime marked various points where the crevice would soon be. Before he knew it, Hajime had a nice outline of the crevice. With that, Hajime began to carve. Hajime made sure that he was extremely careful on creating this crevice, because it took as much dexterity as carving the head. Hajime took about fifteen minutes on this crevice, as he did not wish to make any mistakes on it. This crevice had to be big enough to house the wheel tools, but narrow enough to hold them steady in place. When Hajime was finished, he took his plank and marking tool once more, and measured for the toy claw design. The design was one like the wheels in the respect that it was a toy design—and thus was not sharp. The pieces of the claw design were rounded at their front points. Their back points were squared off so that they could fit snug into the new set of crevices Hajime was about to carve. Taking the measurement of the back end of the toy claw design, Hajime used his marking tool to mark the overlay of the right arm, so that he could make the slits in the overlay. After making the marking, Hajime moved on to the slits. One by one, Hajime took out a couple of different tools to help him carve the small crevices. “Alright. Steady now. Steady.” Hajime carved his slits—an endeavor that was the result of another fifteen minutes of work. After completing these cuts, Hajime cut out the rounded toy claws themselves. Before long, Hajime would complete his cuts, and take out the paint and seal set from his back pack. Before adding these new pieces, Hajime would paint his puppet—inside and out—with the dark wood stain that came in his paint kit. Hajime had to let the puppet dry before he could move on to painting the accessories. HatakeHajime: The paint dried after about an hour after Hajime painted it. After drying completely, Hajime laid his puppet down next to him on the bench. It was after that, when Hajime began painting his accessories. Hajime began to paint the wheel tools and toy claws with the black paint. Leaving those to dry, Hajime would take the red paint and paint over the arm overlays. Hajime would apply another coat to his puppet with the stain as well. This would give the puppet a more even coat. As he waited for everything to dry—an action that would take another whole hour—Hajime would keep his puppet text book open. Hajime would flip to the page of the text book that included focusing one’s chakra to form chakra strings. Hajime was good at focusing his chakra, and had good chakra control—as he would train for hours at a time every time he did it—and suspected that he would grasp the hang of it easily. Little did he know that chakra string development was to be no easy task. Hajime began to study. He read to himself as he always did. “Chakra Threads is a technique that is usually used by puppeteers to allow them to control their puppets in battle. Since these strings are constructs made from very concentrated chakra, they can be seen by people besides the user. Interestingly, as well as pulling objects towards them with the strings, the user can also "push" objects away from them as well, and even get moving objects like buzz saws. Chakra can also be transferred via the strings, such as to activate some abilities in puppets. The chakra strings can also be attached to other objects, allowing the user to control, or at the very least disrupt other things.” Hajime continued to study as he sat on the bench. After repeatedly reading the aforementioned passage, Hajime closed his book, and took a seat on the floor in front of the bench. Hajime then took a small carving tool off of the bench behind him and placed it on his lap. Hajime began to focus his chakra. After a minute, Hajime’s chakra would begin to flow throughout his body—a skill he developed during training his chakra through meditation and focus. Hajime began to isolate the flow of chakra to his hands. After that, Hajime opened his book again, and continued to read up on the act of creating chakra strings. After studying for a few minutes and reading over the instructions, Hajime would keep his book open, and continue to keep his chakra focused into his hands. Hajime would then try to thin out his chakra into strings. This is the part where Hajime would see the most difficulty. Hajime would continue to try forcing the strings from his fingers. His chakra, however, would not thin out. Hajime stopped for a moment, and decided to relax as he focused. Something as intricate as making chakra strings could not be forced. “Okay. Here we go.” Hajime spoke to himself as he gently focused his chakra into his fingers. *Sound of breathing* Hajime took in a deep breath. With his mind now relaxed, Hajime could better control his chakra. After about twenty minutes of focusing his chakra into his fingers, Hajime was able to manifest very thin chakra strings. These strings were brittle, and could not possibly lift anything yet. Hajime was just psyched that he pulled it off. Hajime continued to train with this—referring back to the book the entire time. Hajime would continue to trickle small amounts of chakra into his fingers—he felt that this might make his learning easier as it would be a slow progression toward full chakra strings. As he trickled the chakra into his fingers, Hajime could actually see the strings—a sure sign that what he was doing was working at least a little bit. “Alright!” Hajime was happy. With these strings—which were still far off from the full technique—would be able to grasp objects. Hajime aimed his hand at the tool on his lap. Being extremely careful as to not dispel the jutsu, Hajime griped onto the tool with his newly made threads. Though these threads were far weaker than that of the full technique, Hajime was able to lift the carving tool up from his lap. It was apparent that his strings were at least well enough to lift small things. Hajime would continue this for about an hour. Hajime felt that if he trained the focus of this technique for at least an hour or more at a time, it would make things easier for him—a trait he believed in when it came to his other training as well. Hajime ceased his practice, and picked up the carving tool with his hands this time. He brought it back up to the bench with him as he took his previous seat once again. Hajime felt his painted pieces to make sure that they were dry. After Hajime inspected the dried puppet and accessories, he took the puppet into his hand along with another small carving tool. This tool was very thin. It was the tool he would use to carve the tiny holes into the left arm of his puppet. Hajime—with a steady hand—would gently drill the tiny holes into the overlay where the crevice had been made. “Steady… Steady…” Hajime continued to carve a set of holes for each wheel. After Hajime finished, he took a few pins from his kit. As he slid the small pins through the holes, Hajime fastened a wheel onto each before the pin drifted to its lower counterpart hole. After this was done with, Hajime fastened his newly adorned overlay with tools from his kit. With that, Hajime made the ‘Toy Wheel Saw’. Since it was made from rounded wooden wheels, Hajime knew that it wasn’t made for battle. This was just—as Yume-Sensei had told him—for practice to get into making the real thing. This meant that any toy weapon he attached to this toy puppet was completely cosmetic. After Hajime fastened his pins and wheels into place, he glued and fastened the rounded toy claws into the slits in the right overlay. Now stocked and fully-painted, Hajime would begin to brush the sealing onto his puppet. Now Hajime needed to wait for the sealing to dry. While he waited, Hajime took out the sewing kit, and he would begin to sew bunches of thread. HatakeHajime: Hajime continued to sew for an hour or so. Anybody who might have caught a glance at Hajime could tell what he was sewing. Hajime was sewing the hair for his puppet. After he finished sewing—at which time the puppet’s sealing was dry—Hajime placed glue at the seam of his puppet’s new hairstyle and stuck the hair onto the puppet’s head. Hajime had done it. He had made his puppet. It was, however, incomplete as he had not yet cut and sewn the cloth for the puppet’s outfit. Seeing as Hajime got at least as far as he did today, he put the new puppet away, and proceeded to clean up his workspace. After his area was clean and his equipment and text book were put away, Hajime proceeded toward the gate, where he would leave the courtyard, and make his way into the village.